Repaired right exhaust pipe hanger near front wheel.

Repairing the bad ground in the right tail/turn light and replacing the lens gaskets.

Power Locks!

Finished up the wiring of the locks, keyless, wipers and even cleaned up the fuel pump wiring. I added a small add-on fuse block and tapped into the battery power terminal in the left kick panel. This gave me 4 circuits to play with. I wired the locks and keyless to one circuit that is always on, of course. The fuel pump had been temporarily wired to the Acc terminal on the original fuse block and I now wired it into the auxiliary block. Since we only want power to it when the key is in Run, I tapped a wire in the back of the original block to energize a relay for the pump. I ran the wipers the same way, using a relay so they cut off when you turn off the key. I also replaced the black wiper knob with a '58 radio knob I got at Cooper's for $5. Not sure I like it.

Put the right lock motor in today and got everything wired up except for the keyless unit and tying it all into the car's electrical. I'll save that for next weekend. No need to rush.

Electric Wipers

The electric wiper motor from New Port Engineering went in today. Very simple, direct replacement and I ran the wires the same route as the original cable control went. I removed the washer button and the wiper slide lever, installing the rotating knob in the place of the slider WITHOUT modifying the trim plate. I just fabbed up a small metal plate that I could screw into the existing bosses on the plate to hold the switch. The button for the washer pump will eventually go where the old vacuum button was, but I didn't get to that today. Instead I started putting in the power door lock kit. Driver's door is done. Probably do the passenger's tomorrow.

Power Trunk

This past week a power door lock kit with keyless entry and a trunk pop solenoid was purchased. Work on installing the trunk-pop solenoid began today. Tried just drilling a hole in the latch for the solenoid cable to lift, releasing the trunk catch. There was not enough leverage and the cable was binding on the inner metal sides of the latch housing. So... cutting and welding required. Added some length to the latch to give better leverage to the solenoid. Added a brace across the top and side to keep the latch from slopping off to the side of the trunk catch and to limit the latch's upward travel. The design of the latch is such that when the key is used, it will only lift the latch so far. But the latch will actually travel further if moved by hand or solenoid, and moving it too far will move it beyond the limits that the return spring can deal with. But not anymore! Then the next problem: with the lock cylinder back in place, it impeded the solenoid cable so the bracket for the solenoid had to be bent over to the left to clear the cylinder. Added some adhesive sheet rubber to the inside of the trunk lid to deaden the noise of the solenoid. With test power rigged up, it unlatches the trunk using the solenoid and still works with the key too, so it seems to be adjusted properly. I ran the power wire up the inside of the trunk lid but I had to knock off so I still need to run the wire into the cabin. With this hot weather, I am not working too hard on it so if I don't get power run to it right away, no big deal. The trunk is back to being operable with the key and the lid latches shut so the car is usable this way.

4th and 5th

Put the clock back in the cluster, then put the cluster back in the car. Realized I still have a bit of work to do in painting some small parts for the dash before I can reassemble. The epoxy paint I'm using takes forever to dry, so I spray it one weekend and have to wait til next weekend to assemble. I will NEVER use this crap again!!! At least the car is now drivable again. [Somewhere over the next few weeks it all got done being painted and reassembled.]

Clock

Lucille's clock arrived back from the Clock Works tonight! All refurbed and sporting a new quartz movement.

Take two on repainting the driver's side of the dash. I heard from The Clock Works that my clock is on the way back.

While I've got the dash all apart I figured I might as well repaint the metal parts. Decided on basic refrigerator white, literally. Got white epoxy appliance paint and gave her the Maytag treatment. I think the original paint was plain white instead of the off-white it ended up being, because when I prep-sanded the surface, it was a whole lot whiter than what I've been seeing. The drawback to the epoxy paint is the long drying time. Still, I think it will hold up better in the long run than plain Rustoleum. I also got some white vinyl dye as there are lots of areas of the interior that are dirty looking but the material is still good. So far I have only tried it on the front kick panels. Now my question is, what to do for the steering wheel? It is quite yellowed and while I don't really mind it, I'd prefer it to be as white as the rest of the white parts of the interior... see, you should never improve one area because it makes others look so much worse!

While I've got the dash all apart I figured I might as well repaint the metal parts. Decided on basic refrigerator white, literally. Got white epoxy appliance paint and gave her the Maytag treatment. I think the original paint was plain white instead of the off-white it ended up being, because when I prep-sanded the surface, it was a whole lot whiter than what I've been seeing. The drawback to the epoxy paint is the long drying time. Still, I think it will hold up better in the long run than plain Rustoleum. I also got some white vinyl dye as there are lots of areas of the interior that are dirty looking but the material is still good. So far I have only tried it on the front kick panels. Now my question is, what to do for the steering wheel? It is quite yellowed and while I don't really mind it, I'd prefer it to be as white as the rest of the white parts of the interior... see, you should never improve one area because it makes others look so much worse!

Pulled the clock to send off to Clock Works for quartz conversion. Took a look at the dash light circuit while I've got it all apart... the rheostat on the headlamp switch had a broken contact and it was not reparable. I took the switch apart and lubed it with dielectric grease and fabricated a jumper to bypass the rheostat. I can then replace the switch at some point in the future but for now I have dash lights!

Brakes

Front brakes done today. The bearing seals were both the newer rubber kind and had been re-used more than once. As a result, they were leaking, the left one especially. Replacements were felt, which I like better. Evidence of cylinder seepage on both sides, and both brake hoses were cracked enough to be alarming. Bearings cleaned and repacked along the way. Now I need to go back and make adjustments. The pedal travels too far so I may need to adjust the MC rod as well. Greased the front suspension.

Brakes

Brakes. Front brakes done today. The bearing seals were both the newer rubber kind and had been re-used more than once. As a result, they were leaking, the left one especially. Replacements were felt, which I like better. Evidence of cylinder seepage on both sides, and both brake hoses were cracked enough to be alarming. Bearings cleaned and repacked along the way. Now I need to go back and make adjustments. The pedal travels too far so I may need to adjust the MC rod as well. Greased the front suspension.

Brakes

Brakes. Picked up all the parts for the brakes at Cooper's today. Installed the rears and bled the system with the new pressure bleeder that's been sitting in the living room for months. Works great! The old linings weren't bad at all yet, but the left wheel cylinder was leaking a bit. I'll save the old shoes for next time.

Greased the center u-joint through a hole in the X-frame plate. Center bearing is apparently sealed with no access to grease it. I backed off the bearing mount bolts, then tightened them back down to allow the mount to recenter itself per CML member Ron Threadgil's instructions.

Trans Mount

Replaced transmission mount and greased the front and rear U-joints in the driveshaft. This after taking the car on the freeway and hearing lots of general rumbling in the cabin at 55~65 mph speeds. I started to check the rear end oil level as well but ran out of oil. It's below the top though.

Timing Chain

Replaced timing chain. Also checked to see if the vacuum level rose when I disconnected the brake booster. No difference. Retimed and test drove... no more backfiring!

Drove Lucille over to Eddings with '49er parts but the place was locked up. We headed home and at one point I mashed on the gas harder than usual and was greeted with stumbling and a nice backfire up the carb! Eased off the gas, and she continued as if nothing had happened. I tried again and yes, I could repeat the symptom at will. We got home just fine, of course, and I checked the carb mounting bolts and tested vacuum levels. It was a bit low: leak in the setup that goes to the wipers. Capped that and adjusted the timing. Setting it a bit higher than spec. A test drive revealed the stumbling and backfires were cured but now I had ping. I backed off the timing again and the backfires returned, though not as bad. So now I've tweaked the timing so that the backfires are gone but there is still a tad of ping under certain conditions.

Gassed up the tank and did NOT have a repeat of the last time I went to the gas station with this car, thankfully! Put half-dozen miles on just to see how the new tires are. Results? Amazing! Like night and day. No more pulling and wandering. I would never have believed how different it could be.

Installed the missing exhaust clamp tonight and added a set of chrome tips. I am not happy that one resonator on the right side is a bit out of position and cocked funny. That whole right side was a pain and didn't fit as well as the left. Still, I am ready to let it down off the jacks.

Exhaust!

Installed the new exhaust that arrived on 5/23. Everything came apart very easily and I had no problems with stuck or broken bolts. I think I might have spent about eight hours on the whole thing. I ran short one clamp so technically it isn't "finished" yet, but I fired up the engine and oh my! How nice and quiet she is now!

Metal valve extenders installed and "tire minder" caps on the extenders show green unless the pressure drops below 32 PSI... then shows red.

Tires

New Diamondback Classic whitewall mounted by Western Tire. Stems a bit too short. They are ordering longer ones, but meanwhile I will get extenders.

I wired up the rear speaker and the XM tuner stuff and got the glove box back together. The rear speaker will need to come back out at some point since the rear parcel shelf has been recovered and there are no perforations for the speaker. Even so, the sound quality is not bad. The front speaker can be adjusted to provide more highs to compensate for the muffled rear. Still, I'll want to fix it. Took her out for a quick spin to sample the stereo on the road. Very, very nice. I like that it looks and operates like original and sounds great.

Used the old 4x8 speaker to make an adapter to mount a new Pioneer 4x6 2-way speaker on. Once in the dash, it's barely noticeable except at certain angles in certain light. Even with just that speaker going, the newly converted radio sounds great! And it works beautifully too! Everything works as it did but now it also gets FM stereo and accepts an iPod or XM auxiliary. The Wonderbar works on both AM and FM and turning on the XM tuner switches over to Aux automatically. The rear speaker is a standard 6x9, so a replacement Jensen 3-way speaker went right in without any fuss. The ash trays needed some help. They kept flopping open and it turns out there is an "S" spring that goes in there but the ears that they hold onto were broken off... I riveted a new piece of metal and improvised a screw to hold the end of the spring.

Radio!

The radio arrived today! The dash speaker is a 4x8 and the closest thing I could find was a 4x6. Now to try to get it to work! The radio is installed but until I get a non-grounded speaker in place I can't listen to it.

Dan Steele from Bob's Radio called me this morning and said my radio is done and ready to ship. Total with return shipping was $564.90 so it's not the least expensive stereo I ever bought, but it's the right thing to do for this car. Dan said it may not actually ship out till Friday but the place is so close it only takes a day or two to arrive via ground. Also this morning, the AAA inspector came by to take pictures of the car for insurance. Then I spent the day reworking the fuel pump. I now have a metal bracket to mount the pump on so it hangs lower and is more out of the way of the shock absorber on the right. Finally, late in the afternoon, the new exhaust pipes and mufflers arrived from eBay.

Fuel Pump

I've been replacing the mechanical fuel pump with an electric one, and having a bit of frustration. The first pump did not seem to be able to obtain and hold a prime. A second one, supposedly a better one, did no better. That was before I discovered that perhaps the fuel pressure regulator I installed at the carb might be the problem. Removing that I now have a decent flow of fuel, though I am not sure it is sufficient yet. I am in the process of running the power wire now but I will have to re-visit the mounting of the pump as it is too close to the right rear shock absorber

I found out the radio and power antenna work. I had tried the radio before and got nothing, but that was before I figured out how to raise the antenna... pushing in on the Tuning knob does it. It's not automatic though. Stays up until you put it down by pulling on the knob again. In any case, I'm sending the radio off this coming week to get it converted to stereo with an aux input.

Seller contacted me today to let me know the title had arrived. I gave him my UPS account to send it. I also ordered 4 Diamondback Classic II tires with 2.25" whitewall. Size P235/75-15. Should arrive in about 2.5 weeks.

During the week I replaced the rubber hoses on the gas filler pipe and today replaced the flex fuel line at the fuel pump. Drove the car over to Cooper's where it got approval from Bob and Vinnie, picked up a new set of hood bumpers and brought them home to put on. I have the heater core bypassed until I determine where the leak is.

We won't talk about the trip to the gas station today. Instead, we'll talk about the heater hoses that leak where they connect to the core. Bad core? Bypass for now. Got an aftermarket air cleaner to fit the E/C carb, tweaked the timing and piddled away the day on miscellaneous stuff.

Worked on getting the engine to smooth out and was finally successful. Along the way, a new Pertronics electronic ignition went in along with a fresh cap and rotor. Fresh plugs too for good measure. But none of those things did the trick, of course. When I was just about ready to go for a timing chain set, I thought that first I should try putting the original carb back on. The seller said it had worked but the accelerator pump wasn't right so put this Edelbrock/Carter on instead. I figured at least if the symptoms changed, I'd know I was on the right track. So I pulled the E/C carb off and was starting to transfer the fittings over to the original when I realized there was a chunk missing from the gasket. Thinking I might have found something, I went and looked at the manifold. There was a chunk missing there too... not on the manifold itself, as I thought at first, but on this phenolic spacer, right between the exhaust crossover and the right primary venturi! OMG! The exhaust is getting sucked in there big time! A quick trip to Coopers provided three gaskets and two shims to approximate the same thickness as the broken phenolic spacer and PRESTO, she purrs like a kitten, has excellent vacuum and starts right up! Problem solved. I phoned the seller to let him know and he was genuinely pleased. Man am I relieved!

[113591] It's beginning to look like I bought this car!

eBay

2007-04-11 or so: I saw an ad on ebay... that's fairly typical of the way this crap starts.

Previous Owners and History

Chad Hefty of Alpine, California

I bought the car from Chad. He bought the Cadillac with eight other cars to help a friend/widow whose husband (see below) had collected the cars. She is all orginal except she was painted once upon a time. Has Oregon plates as the widow and her late husband had a second home there. Chad replaced the brake booster with a rebuilt and replaced the carb with an Edelbrock, but is selling the car with the original carb also. Odometer read 13591 miles as of the placement of the eBay ad.    

Larry and Lucille Kocks of Eugene, Oregon

Last known registration good from 03/21/2001 to 03/31/2003. Oregon plate number CSW918. Larry *may* have passed away on Thursday, July 28, 2005 in Eugene. Looks to have been around 70.